Compressibility is a key parameter for brake pad producers, its increase is linked to brake comfort for the drivers and with lower noise levels during braking. The tolerance to noise tends to be even lower for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles since those operate at a considerably low noise level, compared to the internal combustion engine vehicles. The resilient graphitic carbon (RGC) from Superior Graphite has been the preferred choice for both OEM and Aftermarket brake pad producers as a friction modifier given its proven capability to increase the compressibility of the pads, even with low added amounts in the formulation. To overcome the current and future challenges in compressibility increase and noise reduction for brake pads, Superior Graphite has developed a new high resiliency synthetic graphite, and other grades in earlier stage of development. These products can be integrated into a formulation as a drop-in solution for traditional carbonaceous materials or as a performance additive, which provides flexibility to the brake pad producers to adapt their current formulations to versions with higher compressibility. The possibility of combining different resilient grades in the same formulation ensures even more flexibility for the formulators to achieve application-wise tailored compressibility and noise performance targets. The scope of this study was to compare the compressibility of aftermarket brake pads using new Superior Graphite grades as a partial replacement of the carbonaceous materials in the same formulation. The brake pads were prepared and tested for compressibility, shear strength and wear by development partners which have provided the data for this study as a courtesy. The results show significant increases in compressibility of the brake pads using all Superior Graphite resilient products versus baselines, notably the best new product exhibits a 20-25% of increase in compressibility compared to the current industry standard using RGC. If to take into the fact that RGC’s already delivering 30-50% improvement vs baseline, this results in around 50% improvement with the new resilient product.

Superior Graphite: Mr. Henrique De Lima Secco, Dr. Eric Salmon, Mr. Rijo Jacob Robin